Basalt and andesite

Lava flows and breccia of aphyric and plagioclase porphyritic basalt and aphyric andesite; locally includes flow breccia, peperite, some palagonite tuff and breccia, and minor silicic ash-flow tuff and interbeds of tuffaceous sedimentary rocks. In Basin and Range and Owyhee Upland provinces unit grades upward into more silicic, andesitic, and quartz latitic flows and flow breccia, as well as some interbedded tuffs and ash-flow tuffs; also in this region includes aphyric and highly porphyritic, plagioclase-rich basalt. Interfingers with and grades laterally into units Tit and Tts. Commonly contains montmorillonite clays, zeolites, calcite, and secondary silica minerals as alteration products on fractures and in pore spaces. Age, mostly middle Miocene, but includes some rocks of early Miocene age based on vertebrate fossils from related sedimentary units and on potassium-argon ages that range from about 13 Ma to about 19 Ma; most isotopic ages are about 13 to 16 Ma. Includes Steens Basalt (Steens Mountain Basalt of Fuller, 1931) Owyhee Basalt of Corcoran and others (1962) and Kittleman and others (1967), Hunter Creek Basalt and "unnamed igneous complex" of Kittleman and others (1965, 1967), and flows of Prineville chemical type (Uppuluri, 1974; Swanson and others, 1979), which previously were considered part of the Columbia River Basalt Group (Swanson, 1969a)

Basalt of Malheur Gorge was formerly "unnamed igneous complex"; OR023; OR024). Unit includes part of middle Miocene Shumway Ranch Basalt (OR023; OR024); a poorly detailed thick section of basalt, andesite, and intercalated tuffaceous sedimentary rocks in northern Harney County (OR004) which consists largely of mafic flows that are older than the basalt of Malheur Gorge (M.L. Cummings, personal commun., 1998) and may be as old as 19.4+0.8 Ma (J.C. Engels, written commun., 1970) and include flows as young as 12.1 Ma (OR183).